Customers Are Furious After HP Disables Printers If Cheaper Ink Is Used

Hewlett Packard, or HP, have disabled the printers of customers who used ink cartridges from more affordable rival companies.

This sparked outrage after they issued a ‘firmware’ update blocking customers from using cheaper, non-HP ink cartridges in their printers.

HP printers won’t function now unless they’re fitted with the approved ink cartridges after they were remotely updated.

If the cartridges aren’t fitted with an HP microchip, which is generally more costly, the machine will refuse to print any documents.

HP ink cartridges can cost more than double the price of third-party offerings.

The printer company told a newspaper outlet it issued the update to decrease the risk of malware attacks, saying third-party cartridges that use non-HP chips or circuitry could pose risks to the hardware performance, print quality, and security.

According to their website, the printer company also blocked the use of other ink cartridges in order to maintain the integrity of their printing systems and safeguard their intellectual property.

Before the update, HP printers would issue an alter to customers when they didn’t use HP branded ink but now the devices won’t work at all if they’re used.

Many furious customers took to social media whining about the update claiming they felt cheated by the update.

Signing up for an HP ink subscription can set customers back by £4.49 a month to print 100 pages.

The subscription ranges from 99p for 10 pages per month to £22.40 for 700 pages.

It’s unclear which printer models are or will be impacted by this change in the end.

This isn’t the first time HP has angered its customers by blocking the use of other ink cartridges.

The company has been forced to pay out millions in compensation to customers in America, Australia and across Europe since it first introduced dynamic security measures back in 2016.

The easy solution would be, from now on never buy an HP printer.

It was a good printer and now it will stop working if you don’t buy the official cartridges. This is a rotten thing to do to people and hopefully, they will lose customers for doing it, but then they sell the printer at a loss because they can make more money from the ink that they sell. Sell a printer once, sell the ink for the lifespan of the printer.

Some ink printers come with attached ink wells on the outside that are refillable and you don’t even need to buy cartridges, which sounds like the best idea of all.

You can also make your cartridges refillable. All you have to do is purchase an ink kit with a syringe and fill the cartridge thereby getting around buying new cartridges and HP’s firmware.

Ink cartridges are gross polluters. In the United Kingdom, we dispose of 55 million toner and ink cartridges yearly but all of these could be recycled and reused – not very green, are they?

If you buy a printer or any commodity for that matter, does that not then mean that it’s your property? And does the manufactory of that item have the right to make alterations to it without your permission?

It appears that the plan is to ensure that you own nothing and that you will borrow, lease or rent everything in years to come – presented all for your benefit, of course, and companies love subscription-based sale models because they’re extremely profitable.

So, why would you buy from a manufacturer who does this? When you can buy other models, unless, of course, they also follow suit, then we will have no choice but to accept it.